


Pearl

by sxgxls



Series: Lost Land [2]
Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Barebacking, Excessive Worldbuilding, Happy Ending, M/M, Minor Angst, Mutual Pining, Non-Graphic Violence, anti climate change agenda, do not pollute rivers, everyone's a naiad, its pretty tame, naiad wooyoung, naiad yeosang, plot with 1 sex scene, soft at times, why is the whole kpop industry in this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:01:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25315723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sxgxls/pseuds/sxgxls
Summary: Yeosang would walk through fire and desert for Wooyoung, but he knew he would never do the same.Because naiads don't love like that.
Relationships: Jung Wooyoung/Kang Yeosang
Series: Lost Land [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1833688
Comments: 11
Kudos: 87





	Pearl

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hannahuwu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannahuwu/gifts).



> This can be read alone, but it may make more sense if you read that one paragraph about Yeosang in Nectar, the previous fic in this series.  
> Background:  
> Naiads are basically water nymphs. Think mermaids without the tail.  
> They can survive on land, but they require water in their skin and they can dry out and die. As such, fire is extremely dangerous to them.  
> Skin tones range from blue/green toned white to darker greens and blues, with rare exceptions. Deep sea naiads are very pale, whereas naiads who live near the surface are more tanned and dark skinned.  
> Similarly, most naiad blood is a very dark blue, ranging from slightly green to purple.  
> Naiads can eat pretty much anything a human can, as well as all sorts of fish and crustaceans raw.  
> They have a sort of,,, Energy Sense. For example, a naiad would be able to sense a large gathering of other naiads and sea creatures through their output of energy, as well as emotions to varying degrees. Ability varies between naiads, but for most, this ability is limited to sensing other naiads and large sea creatures.  
> Naiads live in schools, as in a school of fish, or on their own depending on the size of their body of water.  
> Also: Oreads are mountain nymphs.

The sun beat down, he forgot to bring snacks, and his skin itched. 

Overall, Yeosang was not having a very good time.

“Hey, hold on for a second,” he rasped, patting the back of the elk Hongjoong had sent him to the Crestfell River on. He appreciated the gesture, but was there nothing with a more comfortable pelt that Hongjoong could have called? Not even a wolf pack which would keep him safe as well as make him look cool to the other naiads? Oh well.

The elk slowed to a stop at a shallow pond that was more of a puddle than anything else, but it was better than nothing. Yeosang hopped off, lying flat in the water that barely covered his body. That elk was seriously uncomfortable to lie on. It probably had fleas or something. Too much for his sensitive skin, anyway. He wallowed in what little water he had, rubbing at his sun-irritated face. It would make much more sense to stay in the water until night when his skin would dry out less quickly, especially in the heat of a cloudless summer, but he was already behind schedule. Reluctantly climbing out of the water, he hopped back on the elk and gave it a pat on the rump, signaling it to get going. If the elk wasn’t happy about a wet naiad on it’s back, Yeosang wouldn’t know. The only land animal he can communicate with is Hongjoong.

The air began to cool as the afternoon faded into night, a welcome reprieve from the drying sun. He could stop for a drink, but he was close to the river. He could feel the energy of the rushing water and the mass numbers of the naiads. Finally, the forest cleared to reveal torrenting water cascading down from the mountains, tributaries to one of the great waterways which fed the land.

“I’ll take it from here, thanks!” he chirped, hopping off the elk and giving it a grateful rub on the neck, which he instantly regretted. God, it burned. 

Yeosang leapt into the water and powered downstream. Where the tributaries met, the naiads were gathering. He swam hard, more to ward off the chill of the mountain water than to get there quicker. Where the water widened and slowed, he was greeted by the sight of dozens of other water nymphs from all varieties of lakes, streams, and rivers. His ear fins swivelled as he looked around, looking for-

_ Wooyoung _ .

He was not, unfortunately, sitting nonchalantly to the side, looking up at Yeosang with seductive eyes and gesturing for him to come a little closer before wrapping his arms around his neck and telling him that he missed him. Instead, he was with a bunch of their friends, shrieking in the ear piercing, dolphin-like way he always did.

Well, that’s his Wooyoung. 

Heart beating faster, he swam over, catching the attention of his friends first.

“Oh my god, is that Yeosang?” Yeonjun gasped.

“Unfortunately, yes.”

Everyone gathered around to prod at him, and he lost sight of the person he was really here for, until he felt strong arms wrap around his waist and a head bump into his.

“God, look how blue you are. You been spending a lot of time on the surface?” Soobin asked, along with everyone else asking a million questions. He was glad his skin had turned a cornflower blue from his time in shallow waters and on land. It made it harder for others to see the dark blue flush he could feel in his cheeks, courtesy to the warmth of a certain someone pressed up against his back. They hadn’t been together like this in years. In the beginning, they all swam together in the same lake, but after a human settlement built a dam in a tributary river, the lake shrank until Wooyoung and Yeosang were forced out to find their own bodies of water. It was a traumatizing experience that no one really wanted to remember, but on the plus side, it meant that Yeosang got to meet Hongjoong, and Wooyoung had his own company in the form of a supposedly very sweet oread aptly named San. Eventually, the conversation dissipated, everyone going off to talk to the other nymphs that were filing in, leaving Wooyoung and Yeosang alone. He detached Wooyoung’s arms from his waist, but held his hands as he turned to look at him.

“...Hi.”   
“Wow, good to know you’re still socially awkward,” Wooyoung laughed, playing with his slightly webbed fingers.

“Come on, I found a hollow where we can talk.” 

He pulled Yeosang with him down a tunnel, twisting and turning until they found a little opening, just big enough to not be claustrophobic. He sank down to rest on the floor of the rock cavern, gesturing for Yeosang to lie with him. Wooyoung didn’t take his eyes off him once as he snuggled up next to him.

“Stop staring at me.”

“But you’re so pretty.”

Yeosang snorted and smacked him weakly, eyes fixed firmly on anything except for Wooyoung’s face, as much as his heart begged for him to look. He wondered when this whole thing started. The whole  _ I like him but we’d never work out and he doesn’t even like me in that way back so there’s no point _ thing. 

Plenty of naiads are polyamorous or otherwise in loose relationships, with strict monogamous desires considered unusual. They generally lived freely, bringing whoever they wanted to bed knowing it didn’t have to mean anything. However, Wooyoung and Yeosang never had the chance to form a school or even befriend other naiads after they were separated, living in isolated ponds with miles of rough land between them. Wooyoung had learned to cope, always telling Yeosang about his romps with San and every other consenting being he could find, despite his relatively remote mountain tarn. 

Yeosang, however, had definitely not. This was in part due to his introverted nature, but also due to the fact that he had somehow caught feelings for a guy who he only saw every few years and felt the need to “save himself” for him. Not that they hadn’t fucked before or anything, but they both knew that the few times they had meant nothing more than physical attraction. Yeosang wasn’t saving his body, he was saving his heart. He’d never admit it to anyone aside from Hongjoong, though. All the naiads would think he’s weird. Wooyoung would probably think there’s something wrong with him, and never talk to him again.

  
“You look a little scratched up, did you have a hard time getting here?” Wooyoung asked, stroking Yeosang’s arm.

“Uh, a little. I had to spend about eight hours on the back of an elk that Hongjoong called, during the day as well.”

“Oh, you poor thing. Why didn’t you go at night? It’d have saved you a lot of pain,” he said.

_ Don’t do that. Don’t act like you care. _

“How is Hongjoong anyway?”

“He’s pretty good. Still a bit of a whore. He’s probably seduced and murdered someone by now.”

The small talk continued until Wooyoung was rubbing circles on Yeosang’s waist, and he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to go to sleep, be horny, or confess his love because surely Wooyoung’s constant touching had to mean something. The decision was made for him a few seconds later.

“You should probably sleep, you look exhausted,” Wooyoung said, sitting up and leaving Yeosang on the ground.

“Wait, where are you going?”

“I’ll probably go out and see if anyone else has arrived. Don’t worry, I won’t leave the area.” Wooyoung rose to his feet and began drifting out of the cave.

_ I come all this way to see him for the first time in years and he won’t even sleep with me? _

“I don’t think I can sleep. It’s too cold here.”

“I can bring you some furs if you’d like.”

“Well… What if I wake up and I try to navigate these caverns to find you and I get lost? And what if I have a nightmare? I always get nightmares when I’m in new places,” he rambled. 

_ God, I’m so obvious. He’s gonna leave me now. He’s gonna go and laugh about me to the others and I will never be invited to a naiad gathering ever again- _

“You’re so cute. You could have just asked me to stay with you, you know,” Wooyoung said, smiling knowingly and sinking back down.

“So you’re staying?”

“Do you want me to?”

Yeosang nodded shyly, turning away as much as he could from Wooyoung who was inches from his face.

“Then I’ll stay,” he said. Wooyoung’s arms were back around his waist, and as he drifted off to sleep, Yeosang was almost able to pretend that Wooyoung really loved him.

Yeosang was awoken by gentle tugging on his hair. He whined, arm flailing back to weakly smack someone who was hopefully Wooyoung.

“Morning. I’m braiding your hair, hold still.” 

Definitely Wooyoung. Yeosang grumbled, rubbed his eyes and yawned to let some fresh water flush through his system. The feeling of Wooyoung’s fingers in his hair was pretty nice, despite the occasional pinch. He almost fell asleep again, but the snap of a tough string of kelp between Wooyoung’s teeth stirred him awake again. 

“Hold on, let me just tie that… there we go. You can get up now,” he said. Yeosang sat up and Wooyoung’s hands immediately went to cradle his face, examining the work he’d done. His face was definitely heating up.

“Pretty.”

“Me or the braid?” Yeosang asked, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear from where it came loose under the braid.

“Both,” Wooyoung hummed. He rose to his feet. 

“Come on, let’s see if we can find something to eat.”

Yeosang held his hand as Wooyoung led him out of the twisting caverns. It was bright when they emerged, and a large group of naiads were sitting around an outcrop of rocks where they were protected from the current, sharing a large woven sack of what looked like nuts and berries. Among them were their old lake mates, and two extraordinarily dark green naiads with strange accents.

“Who are they?” Yeosang whispered.

“Uh, I think that one is called Felix or something like that,” Wooyoung said, nodding at a dainty looking man in the group. He had freckles. The guy next to him had curly, absolutely un-hydrodynamic hair. What the hell. 

“They’re from the southern islands, it’s sunnier there.”

Well, that explained the skin. There were rumors of naiad-human relationships in the southern islands, resulting in naiads who could comfortably spend days in the sun at the cost of dull eyes in the dark, and humans who were a little too graceful in the water. Not that Yeosang could know for sure, of course. It would probably be impolite for him to ask.

“Hey, the lovebirds are up!” Taehyun called, catching their eyes and shifting over to make space for them. Wooyoung laughed, thankfully not a negative reaction. Greetings were exchanged as the pair sat down, and the sack of various snacks were passed around. The curly haired naiad was apparently named “Christopher, but Chan works as well”.

“Do we have an actual plan for tonight yet?” Beomgyu asked, chewing on a block of raw salmon. Yeosang’s stomach growled. He hadn’t been able to eat salmon since he was kicked out of the lake they used to share. Sensing his hunger, Huening Kai rummaged through the bag to find two more chunks of salmon, passing them to Yeosang and Wooyoung.

“Thanks, Hyuka. God, it’s been a while,” Wooyoung sighed.

“We have a general plan, but at dusk the locals are gonna blow the horn and gather us so we can talk about it. I think there’s a debate going on about whether the offending humans should be killed or not,” Chan said.   
“They wouldn’t, right? The rest of the humans would hunt them down!” 

“There’s that, but mountain naiads just don’t like violence,” Wooyoung interjected. 

“When I first arrived at my tarn, I was invited here to meet the river school and they didn’t have a single weapon. They barely even eat meat, I don’t know how they survive up here.”

There were murmurs of agreement around the circle. Yeosang stayed quiet. He was busy trying not to react to the hand Wooyoung was rubbing his thigh with.

Dusk had fallen, and at the blow of a conch shell reverberating violently through the water, around a hundred naiads had congregated in a wide, upstream cavern. Yeosang’s reflective pupils were blown wide in the near pitch blackness, until the glow of a ball of bioluminescent algae drifted into the room.

“Thanks,” Felix said, taking the ball that someone had passed to him and holding it up to his face.

“Hey, don’t laugh at me, I haven’t had to spend the night underwater in years- oh my god all your eyes are glowing.” 

A few chuckled, others sighed. Some elders had a distaste for southern naiads on the grounds that their close interaction with humans was “ruining the purity of nymph-hood” and “leading us all to doom”. But after a full day of chatting with Chan and Felix, Yeosang thought they were pretty cool. Kind of disturbing how they would grill shrimp on a human tool called a barbecue, though.

“Hello? Hello! Thank you all for joining us on such a short notice, and I’m really glad our call for help was heard for so many miles,” the leader of the river school, Taeyong, said. He looked like a bit of a twink, but he was a twink in control.

“Our school has discussed the various suggestions that you have offered us, and we’ve come to the decision that although the humans will be punished, none of them can be seriously injured or killed.” 

A group of women groaned.

“Sorry, Irene. You can find some other men to kill afterwards. The first thing we have to do is go to the area where they dumped their ores and tannery waste. We’ve collected some baskets to put them in, but do  _ not _ touch any of it with your bare hands, and try to pick up as much of it as you can from rocks or the bank. Jisung, show them your hands.”

A clearly young but tall boy scrambled up from behind Taeyong and held his hands up for all to see. They were scraped and blistered raw, a painful looking indigo against his seafoam green skin.

“It’s better than it was a few days ago, but it made me and Chenle pretty sick, too. We were downstream when we started feeling queasy so we tried swimming up when we bumped into all of the stuff, and I don’t know what I picked up, but I held it for like, five minutes to move it somewhere else and a few hours later we were throwing up and stuff… yeah, it... wasn’t fun,” he mumbled, looking to Taeyong for approval.

“Thanks, sweetie.” 

Jisung sat back down next to another kid, presumably Chenle. 

“So, once we’ve picked up all the detritus, a few of us will take it to the village and leave the criminals a little gift. There’s four rooms we need to break into, and two are in the same cottage. Jaemin and Jeno were able to track them down and they’ve practiced sneaking in and out, so they’ll lead a group of about five people into the village. The rest of us will stand by in case anything goes wrong. So, do we have any volunteers?”

Several hands went up. Yeosang thinks he saw the woman named Irene raise an axe. Very on brand.

“Chan and Felix? Where are you- Oh, you guys should definitely come since you’re good with humans. Who else? Yoojung? Yeah, you’re small and sneaky, uh, two more people-”

Wooyoung and Yeosang turned to look at each other. No words were said, but the message was clear.

“We’ll go!” Wooyoung shouted, holding Yeosang’s hand tightly.

“Right, we’re sorted then!” Taeyong exclaimed delightedly. 

_ Wait, this could be dangerous. What if one of us touches the stuff in the river? What if the villagers wake up? They have pitchforks! And fire! And no respect for the environment! Oh my god, they’re gonna catch us and kill us. They’re gonna keep us in a cage until we dry out. Oh god. I did not agree to this. _

“Downstream we go!”

_ WAIT- _

Wooyoung kept his fingers interlocked with Yeosang’s as everyone filed out of the cave and let the current carry them down. When most people had passed them, he turned to look at Yeosang.

“You alright? You seem a little tense,” he asked.

“Uh, just nervous. I haven’t done anything like this before,” Yeosang said, fiddling with the braid in his hair.

“Me neither, but it’ll be alright. We’ll be fine if we stick together.”

“But we’re definitely gonna stick together?”

The rushing of the water was growing louder as they entered the main river. Wooyoung pulled him closer.

“Of course we are. There’ll be blood if anyone lays a hand on my little Yeosangie.”

He was probably joking, but his words rang in Yeosang’s ears.

_ His little Yeosangie. _

The amount of trash in the river almost formed a dam, slowing down the water as the couple approached. They hopped out well before they neared the poison, not wanting to risk illness. Yeosang helped pull Wooyoung onto the bank and into his cold, dripping arms.

“Thanks babe,” he said, with a wink.

_ Is he gonna do this all night? _

Dozens of naiads had already gotten to work, using bamboo poles and anything else they could find to pick dark ores and rejected leathers which reeked of chemicals out of the water and into the large baskets supplied for them. Before they could help out, Jaemin and Jeno waved them over to the side. The others who would be going with them were already there, sitting around a carved clay tablet. 

“So, here’s a map of the village. We’ll be going to these three cottages,” Jeno said, gesturing towards three small squares with crosses over them. 

“The wall is more of a wooden fence than anything, intended for animals and children rather than people trying to break in, so we could scale that easily. We’ll come in from here.” 

He began to draw a line in the clay with a fingernail, marking their path.

“A few of us can climb down the chimney here- we’ve tried it, it’s easy- and whoever’s on the roof slides a waste basket down with a rope. With this house it’s simple because everything’s on the ground floor, we can just scatter the trash around the floor, and if the person is asleep deeply enough, we can have some fun and tuck some cinnabar or whatever the red stuff is into bed with the guy. Rinse and repeat. Got it?”

Everyone nodded. Yeosang raised a hand.

“What if one of them wakes up?”

“Well. Uh, can you guys sense human energy?” Jaemin asked, looking at Chan and Felix.

“Kind of? I can tell if a human is stirring but I won’t be able to sense exactly when they’ll wake up. I think Felix is better at it, though,” Chan said. Felix nodded.

“We should have Felix inside and Chan on the roof then,” Jaemin decided.

“So that you can keep a lookout and warn us if another human is coming.”

“But what if they actually wake up?” Yeosang asked. He didn’t realise his leg was bouncing until Wooyoung laid a calming hand on it.

“Well, we run and pray that they’re not vengeful.” Jeno’s smile was humorless. Yeosang really, really wasn’t sure if he wanted to do this anymore.

The debris in the river had been cleared up within an hour, with seemingly few injuries sustained. When the last few nymphs had returned from travelling downstream to check if anything had been dislodged and carried away, Taeyong gave the signal to head towards the village. As per the new usual, Wooyoung was holding Yeosang’s hand.

_ So I’m gonna be on the roof. And Wooyoung is going to be inside. What do I do if the human wakes up and he’s stuck in there with it. Oh god. I can’t fight. I don’t even have a weapon. HE doesn’t even have a weapon. Oh, relax, Felix will be able to tell if the human is waking up and he’ll get everyone out. But what if he doesn’t? What if it screams and the entire village wakes up and they chase after us and Wooyoung and the others can’t get out. What if I get stuck on the roof. Wooyoung wouldn’t help me if he’s running away. What if the villagers come running after us with fire. Oh god. We’re gonna die. _

A tight squeeze of his hand broke him out of his trance.

“You look like you’re about to faint. You really don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” Wooyoung said. He rubbed Yeosang’s thumb comfortingly and gently pulled him closer until their shoulders bumped together.

“Really, I’m fine. Just nervous.”   
Clearly not buying it, Wooyoung sighed and enveloped Yeosang in a warm, grounding hug.

“I can feel your fear, you know. And like this I can feel your heartbeat as well. Why don’t you tell me what’s bothering you?”

Yeosang’s heart was in his throat. He froze up the second Wooyoung held him, but his gentle stroking down Yeosang’s back relaxed him until he buried his face in Wooyoung’s neck.

_ I don’t want you to get hurt. _

“You know how I get sometimes.”

_ I don’t want the one night we get to spend together to end in tragedy. _

“I kinda blow things out of proportion, I guess.”

_ I don’t want to lose you. _

“I keep thinking about this going wrong. I don’t know why, I guess I’m just kinda paranoid since I never even imagined doing something like this before.”

_ I don’t want to lose you, because I love you. _

Yeosang fought back tears. He didn’t want Wooyoung to be more suspicious than he already was.

“We both know there’s more to it than that, Yeosang. But I won’t force you to tell me anything. I can’t promise that everything will be okay, but we can try our best, right?” 

He peeled Yeosang off himself slightly to caress his face, frowning at his downcast eyes. 

“Hey, look at me,” he said softly. Reluctantly, Yeosang did. It was the closest they had ever been. Yeosang’s heart begged him to close the distance between them, but his head screamed at him to run away.

“If I thought we’d get hurt doing this, I’d never have volunteered. Jaemin and Jeno know their way around. Chan and Felix have human sense. We’re in good hands, okay? And if something goes wrong, I’m not gonna leave you behind. Either both of us are getting out, or neither of us are. That’s a promise.”

Yeosang nodded, and Wooyoung let him go when they were ready. Their walk to the village was wordless, but Wooyoung’s firm grip on his hand said all that needed to be said. 

Yeosang felt the eyes of dozens of naiads on him as he scaled the wooden fence to the village. It wasn’t particularly tall or difficult, but his hands were sweating, and he let Wooyoung catch him on the other side. A few woven shut baskets of waste were thrown in after them, which they picked up, trying not to hold them too close. Luckily, the trees were sparse, allowing the moonlight to illuminate the village so Felix could see. His eyes didn’t glow a bright white like everyone else’s, instead they were more of a faint amber. Yeosang thought they were very pretty anyway, but now was not the time to be distracted by them. Jaemin pressed his ear to the side of a cottage for a few seconds, before gesturing for everyone to follow him as he climbed up a nearby tree and stepped lightly onto the roof.

“Be careful where you step,” he whispered.

“Some tiles might be loose.”   
When Jaemin was up, he tossed the end of a rope down, which Yoojung looped around a basket for him to carry up before she silently leapt up the tree and onto the roof. 

“Felix, Wooyoung and Yoojung will come down with me, the rest of you are staying here. Jeno, you’re lowering the basket, right?” 

Jeno nodded. The four of them crept into action, shimmying down the chimney one by one. Before Wooyoung joined them, he turned to Yeosang and pulled him over as much as he could with one hand, rubbing his shoulder.

“We’ll be as quick as we can.”

Yeosang watched him clamber down the chimney, not taking his eyes off him until he landed soundlessly. Wooyoung smiled at him from several feet down. Yeosang smiled back. He’d be fine. He moved aside to let Jeno tuck the basket into the tight square of the chimney, lowering it slowly until he felt the weight lift off the rope. 

And there was nothing Yeosang could do except hope.

Meanwhile, Wooyoung was having a pretty grand time placing poisonous ores and leather in every nook and cranny he could find: a scrap in the bookshelf, a suspicious looking rock among the human’s trinkets, and just out of pettiness, three chunks of stringy looking ore that was probably asbestos in the pantry. It’s what the human deserved for intentionally poisoning every downstream creature, with reports of suspicious numbers of dead fish all the way down to the estuary where the river became the sea. Wooyoung was wearing thick human gloves and lacked sensitivity to many ores that would harm most mammals, so he had no fear of breathing too close to anything. The waste basket was almost empty when Felix gestured everyone into the bedroom.

“He’s totally knocked out. We could sneak a few things in his bed.”

Grinning, Yoojung tucked a large orange stone under the blanket next to the sleeping man. It would be the first thing he sees when he wakes up. When the remaining scraps in the basket were distributed around the room, Jaemin gave a warning tug on the rope. Jeno peered down and gave him a thumbs up.

“Hey, help me hold the rope, they’re climbing up now,” he whispered. Yeosang eagerly held the end of the rope, hands shaking in anticipation. Felix’s head popped up first, and his smile calmed Yeosang’s nerves.

“That went pretty well,” he said, lifting himself out of the chimney. He looked a little coal-scuffed, but nothing else indicated a struggle.

“He was out cold. It was kinda fun.”

_ Okay. Okay, maybe this isn’t so bad. _

Finally, Wooyoung pulled himself up, stifling a laugh at Yeosang’s concerned expression.

“Hey babe. Anything happen up here?” he asked. Yeosang giggled quietly, dusting the coal dust off his body.

“Alright, stop being gross. Next house,” Jeno said, standing up and surveying the buildings. Like a cat, he hopped between roofs, barely making a sound, until he was on top of a slightly taller cottage a street away. He did all that with a basket tied around him, as well. Yeosang gulped. The others might have been agile from their time jumping between rocks or whatever land activities they did, but he was a pond dweller. He was loud, and clumsy, and everything they weren’t.

“You can do it. Would you like me to go before you?” Wooyoung asked, sensing his worry. Yeosang nodded, watching carefully as he took the first leap from one roof to another, before turning around to smile at Yeosang.

“You have space for a run up. Come on, I know you can do it.”

With a deep breath, Yeosang took two steps back, ran, and jumped as hard as he could. He landed in a rather ungraceful heap, but he was mostly quiet.

“There you go! You’re like, a meter over the edge. I told you you’d be fine,” Wooyoung praised, helping Yeosang up. He let out a shaky breath.

_ I can do this. _

The next few houses were fine with Wooyoung’s encouragement, but the last jump loomed over him imposingly. The cottage roof was about five meters away, and higher than the storehouse he was standing on. He looked behind him. The roof was uneven, meaning he barely had any space for a run up.

“Hmm, this looks a little harder. The roof is slanted but there’s a gutter, so even if you don’t make it all the way, you can grab on and I’ll pull you up, okay?” Wooyoung said. He waited for Yeosang to let out a shaky “okay” before he stared the jump down, shuffled back as far as he could, and ran forward. His powerful legs propelled him easily over the gap, landing with a muffled clink of the tiles under his feet.

“Hey, that wasn’t so bad. Just do your best to land on your feet, okay? Even if it’s on the ground. If you slip and you have to grab onto the gutter, we can pull you up. We have a rope too!”

Yeosang kept his eyes trained on the roof. He could do this. He was just as strong as they were from his years of swimming against currents and moving the boulders at the bottom of his pond for fun. Steeling himself, he did as Wooyoung did: he stepped back until his heels hit a ledge, felt the tiles under his feet, and ran.

The air whistled past him, and he landed. Hard. He barely held back a shriek as he slipped, the tiles underneath him coming loose and throwing him off until he landed with a thud on his chest, still sliding towards the edge.

“Yeosang! Yeosang, hold on,” Wooyoung gasped, clambering over the slanted roof as quickly as he could. The metal gutter dug into Yeosang’s stomach painfully, and his fingers paled with the death grip he had on the millimeters of tile he could grab onto. 

“Throw me the end of the rope!” 

Jeno tossed the rope over, holding the end tightly. Balancing over the peak of the roof, Wooyoung threw his end down to Yeosang, who thankfully managed to grab onto it. 

“You’re okay, baby, you’re okay,” Wooyoung whispered as if to a spooked kitten as he pulled Yeosang up until he could stand on his own.

“Come on, come over here- are you okay?” he asked as Yeosang collapsed in his arms.

“I’m sorry, I was too loud, they’ve probably all woken up by now-”

“It’s alright, we can leave if they’ve woken up,” Jaemin said, patting his shoulder sympathetically.

“Poor thing, you’re all scratched up now,” Wooyoung cooed, rubbing gently at his slightly bleeding arms, down to the harsh line of the gutter carved into his stomach.

“Felix, can you tell if the humans inside have woken up?” Yoojung asked.

“Uh… I’m not sensing much. That might mean they’re asleep, or I just can’t sense much through the roof.”

“What if we lower you down? Would it be too dangerous?” 

“It should be okay, their bedrooms aren’t next to the fireplace.”

“We’ll give it a try then.”

Yeosang watched from Wooyoung’s embrace as Jeno cautiously lowered Felix down the chimney. A few, tense seconds passed before the two exchanged hand signals.

“He says it’s alright. Wooyoung, you coming?”

Wooyoung turned to look at Yeosang.

“Will you be okay on your own?”

He nodded shakily, knowing full well that he needed Wooyoung with him.

“Be careful, okay?” he whimpered.

“Of course, baby,” Wooyoung said. He stood up, but not before planting a gentle kiss on Yeosang’s forehead. A warmth instantly flooded his chest, and he couldn’t help the smile on his face as Wooyoung descended into the house.

“Don’t worry too much, humans have terrible senses,” Chan said. Wooyoung and the others had been down for about five minutes, and that was five minutes too long for Yeosang.

“Seriously, it’s impossible to wake some humans up. Once I tripped over a fish drying rack in a human camp. Knocked the whole thing over, and only a couple people noticed. They’ll be fine in there.”

He sure hoped so. The rest of the village was quiet, at least. Even the village dogs were fast asleep on the steps of a butchery. Things would be fine. If the humans didn’t even notice the racket he made when he fell, they would definitely be fine for the rest of the night.

And they were fine, until there was a mighty crash from inside the house.

“Oh, fuck. Jaemin, get back up here!” Jeno shouted down the chimney. Yeosang scrambled to look down, his heart beating out of his chest, but he couldn’t see past the fire pit. All he could see was the moving light of a lantern, and all he could hear was shouting in a foreign language.

“Chan, what are they saying?” He cried.

“Uh… I don’t know, they’re just screaming- oh shit, he’s telling the other human to light a torch.” 

Amongst the commotion, lights were beginning to flicker on in nearby houses.

“God, we don’t have time for this. Jaemin! If you can’t get up the chimney, get out the door!” There was the gut wrenching sound of a fire coming to life.

“Fuck it, get down. We need to go in through the door. God, we weren’t supposed to seriously hurt anybody.” Jeno and Chan slid off the roof sprinting to the door. Yeosang followed, his fear of falling swallowed by something much, much deeper.

“The whole village is waking up, hurry!” Chan shouted. With three powerful kicks, the front door of the house flew off its hinges.

“Wooyoung!” 

The naiads were cornered, surrounded by three humans with oil lanterns and flaming sticks. The humans all jumped in shock at their entrance, giving the naiads time to escape. They scrambled out the door, humans hot in pursuit.

“Back the way we came! The others should be waiting with a rope!”

More doors were bursting open, more firelight began to flood the streets with shouts and curses Yeosang couldn’t understand. He turned his head, desperately searching for Wooyoung.

“I’m right behind you, Yeosang, just run!” he called.

The footsteps of dozens of humans and the roar of flame drew closer, but so did the fence. As promised, a rope hung down for them. Yoojung reached the rope first, giving it a testing tug before launching herself up, scaling it in seconds.

“Go, just go!” Somebody yelled. The heat of a hundred torches began to close in on Yeosang. As soon as Jaemin made it over the fence, it was just him and Wooyoung.

“Yeosang, go!” Wooyoung cried, pushing him up. The shapes of the humans flickered in the corner of his eye, like demons rising from hell bearing their fire. 

“They’re here, Yeosang- Fuck!” 

Yeosang was already at the top of the fence when he Wooyoung cried out. He turned around to see the humans throwing their sticks of fire at his Wooyoung, lunging forward to grab him. One was successful, pink fingers digging into his arm and dragging him back into the mob.

“Wooyoung!” he screamed, to no avail. Tears streamed down his face.

_ I knew this would happen. This is my fault for letting him go. He’s going to die because of me. _

But Wooyoung burst away after a heart stopping struggle, and with a powerful leap, he was a few meters up on the rope. He was fast, but the fire that had been lit at the bottom of the rope was faster.

“Wooyoung, quickly!”

Just a few more grasps upwards, but the fire was already licking at Wooyoung’s feet. 

Yeosang held his hand out. 

He was a foot away.

The fire was rising faster than he could climb higher.

But he was inches away now.

And then centimeters. 

And just as the fire devoured the rope at his feet, Wooyoung’s hand flew into Yeosang’s. Their hands were sweaty and slipping, but Yeosang sacrificed his grip on the fence to throw his other arm over, holding onto Wooyoung as tightly as he could.

“Can you climb?” 

“Maybe if I just-” Wooyoung’s feet scrabbled at what little hold he had until he was able to lift a leg above the fence.

With a last, desperate pull, Yeosang tugged Wooyoung over.

And they fell back down to earth together.

All the naiads had surrounded them, but their words fell on deaf ears. All Yeosang saw was Wooyoung. His Wooyoung with burned skin and bruised arms. 

His Wooyoung who was still holding his hands. 

His Wooyoung, who he nearly lost.

Wooyoung was staring at him too. What exactly was going on in his mind, he’d never know, but something was off. Amidst the range of powerful emotions surrounding them, there was a hollowness that he couldn’t place. Several pairs of hands sat the two of them up, brushing the dirt off Yeosang and the soot off Wooyoung.

“Yeosang? Yeosang, can you hear me?” 

Soobin’s worried voice swam in and out until Yeosang realised it was him. He blinked once, twice until his eyes focused on Soobin’s face.

“Are you hurt?” He asked, a hand on his shoulder.

“Uh… no. Wooyoung, are you hurt?”

There were a few seconds of silence. Wooyoung didn’t take his eyes off Yeosang once.

“I’m fine, just a little scuffed up,” he said slowly. 

“Get him into the water, he’s dehydrated.”

Wooyoung was lifted by people he couldn’t see and placed gently in the river several paces away.

“Can you stand? You took quite a fall,” Soobin asked, extending a hand to help him off the ground. All his old schoolmates were by his side. With their help, Yeosang got up, and limped towards the river. He insisted that he didn’t need to be carried. When he collapsed into the river, he just laid there, feeling the water run through his system and wash away the blood and fear. But he had someone more important to take care of.

Sinking down to the river floor revealed Wooyoung, sitting up but a little dazed as the others examined his burns. Yeosang felt for his energy. He wasn’t in much pain, but there was something else there. A mixture of longing and relief, and what felt like sadness, but he couldn’t be sure. He joined Wooyoung on the ground, fingers intertwining.

“...Hi.” 

“Hello.” 

A smile grew on their scratched up faces.

“You feel okay?” Wooyoung asked with a giggle.

“Doing alright. You?”

“Eh, could be better. Kinda dry. And a bit too warm. But maybe that’s because of the hot boy who just saved my life.”

Yeosang held back a laugh and smacked him as gently as he could. The other naiads had left them to their shenanigans, so they sat alone, watching the occasional fish rush above them.

“So what happens now?” Yeosang asked.

“Our job’s done. Taeyong came to talk to me earlier, told me to thank you on his behalf. He said we can go whenever we want, and that we’re always welcome back even just to visit.”   
“That’s nice of him.”

“Yeah.”

Instead of their usual comforting silence, the quietness just made space for a question gnawing at Yeosang’s heart. He chose to ignore it, for now.

“You should rest, do you wanna go back to that cave?” 

“Sure,” Wooyoung said, rising up with a wince. 

“We can go slowly.”

“Nah, I’m fine. It’s just my feet that are a little scratchy since those bastards lit a fire under me. Get over here, I wanna hold your hand.”

What was Yeosang gonna do? Say no? He slowed down and let Wooyoung latch onto him, unhurriedly making their way back upstream. Yeosang was beginning to ache all over, probably from the fall and the adrenaline wearing off.

“This way,” Wooyoung said, leading him down a now familiar cave system until they found themselves back in the little hollow. They sank together, hitting the ground with a sigh.

“Hey, the braid is still in your hair,” Wooyoung laughed, stroking it gently.

“Just go to sleep, you’re hurt.”

But Yeosang didn’t really want that.

_ We’ll leave each other tomorrow. This is the last time we’ll be together, for years at least. This could be my last chance to say it to him. _

Wooyoung was spooning him now, his face buried in Yeosang’s neck, but he could tell Wooyoung was still wide awake. He could feel the same longing and a strange sense of sadness that he felt from him earlier.

“Is something up?” Yeosang said softly.

“Mmm, just thinking. Can’t really sleep. You?”

“...Me too.”

“Whatcha thinking about?”

Wooyoung had started placing gentle kisses on his neck, slowly trailing down and rolling Yeosang over to nibble at his throat.   
“Ah- are we really doing this now?”

“Do you want to?” 

He waited for Yeosang to nod before he brushed his lips further down, settling at a nipple and making him whimper. But Yeosang could tell that he was just distracting himself. Behind his arousal was still yearning and restlessness, but he wasn’t going to press it. Wooyoung probably knew he knew anyway.

Wooyoung’s attention had partially turned towards Yeosang’s hardening length, emerging from its scaled sheath between his legs. His fingers skated over it teasingly as he continued to taste Yeosang’s skin.

“Can I mark you?”

“Please- Ah!” 

With Yeosang’s confirmation, he bit down on the junction between his neck and shoulders, leaving a dark imprint of his sharp teeth. Yeosang wanted to be covered with them. He wanted to look at them every day when he’s inevitably sent back to his pond, to press new bruises in when they started to fade, to pretend that he was really Wooyoung’s. Yeosang’s hands flailed as Wooyoung stroked his fully revealed dick with his calloused hands, rubbing the precum emerging from his pointed head around his length. His arms settled around Wooyoung’s shoulders and his eyes squinted shut, beautifully sensitive under Wooyoung’s touch. He pressed their bodies together, and felt Wooyoung’s cock rubbing against his own.

“How do you wanna do this?” He asked, peeling himself off Yeosang’s neck to let him think.

“Want you in me, please-”

“Are you sure? You fell really hard earlier. I’m pretty sure I landed on top of you as well, I don’t want you to overexert yourself.”

“I’ll be fine,” Yeosang whined, grabbing at Wooyoung to pull him closer.

“Jus’ want you to take me.”

“Mm, alright then,” Wooyoung purred, hands trailing down his body to rest a finger at his hole. He was starting to drip slick, but it wasn’t quite enough yet.

“I’ll be gentle though, okay?”

_ I don’t want gentle. I want to feel you for weeks. _

He nodded anyway. Logically, he knew he wouldn’t be able to take the pounding he craved, with the deep ache resounding through his body growing stronger as the rush of danger in his brain faded. Eyes flitting over the dark blue welts all over Wooyoung’s arms and torso, he knew he wouldn’t be able to go rough either.

Placing a hand on Yeosang’s back, Wooyoung raised him up, the lift of the water doing most of the work, and turned him around so he had easy access to Yeosang’s pretty hole. Yeosang whined softly as he spread his cheeks and tongued at his hole. His slick tasted like a fresh stream and land fruits, owing to his life in the forest.

“Can I finger you?”

“What kind of question is that?” Yeosang giggled, but he couldn’t help the moan that slipped out when a finger entered him, taking its time and making sure that he was comfortable. After a few seconds of stillness, Wooyoung’s hand began to move, rubbing gently against Yeosang’s prostate. At the entry of another finger, his legs began to shake and he reached back desperately for Wooyoung’s hand.

“I got you, babe, I’m here,” He whispered, taking both of Yeosang’s hands in one of his to hold them behind his back, grounding him. 

“God, you’re getting so wet.” 

The constant grind against his prostate had him dripping from both his hole and the tip of his dick. Wooyoung slotted a thigh between his legs, making him cry out as he pushed Yeosang’s body down, fingers still in his hole, until he could hump his thigh pathetically.

“Is that good? Can I put another one in?”

Yeosang whimpered an “Uh-huh” to both questions, keening as Wooyoung stretched him out on three of his fingers. The stroking against his sweet spot neared too much in his heightened sensitivity, and Wooyoung could tell by the twitching of his legs and his increasing moans.

“Do you wanna come now or when I’m inside you? I don’t mind either way,” Wooyoung said, leaning over to mouth at his neck.

“Want your cock, wanna come with you, please,” Yeosang gasped. Wooyoung hummed in approval, letting his fingers slide out and his hand rest on Yeosang’s ass cheek.

“I know I keep asking you this, but how do you wanna…”

“I wanna see you,” he murmured. 

“Okay.” 

With tender hands, Wooyoung turned him back around and held him in his arms, not wanting his baby’s back to get scraped on the stone floor.

“Like this?” 

Yeosang nodded, holding onto Wooyoung’s shoulders. Their faces were centimeters apart, and as much as he wanted to gaze into Wooyoung’s eyes, he couldn’t bear it. He rested his head in the crook of his neck instead.

At the first breach of Wooyoung’s cock in his hole, Yeosang’s head filled with fuzz. The sound of his gentle thrusts and their shaky moans filled the hollow. 

Yeosang had never felt so full and yet so empty at the same time. 

Wooyoung was panting into his ear, telling him how good he felt. His hips moved faster and Yeosang shifted in his grasp, the new angle punching into him deeper and harsher against his prostate.

“Wooyoung, it’s so good, I-”

“Can I kiss you?”

The question caught him off guard, and he lifted his head to see if there was a joking smile on Wooyoung’s face, for confirmation that he was just joking as usual.

But his eyes were true, gazing into Yeosang like he was the most beautiful pearl in the ocean. 

“Do you mean it?” 

“Of course. I’ve wanted to for years. You can say no, though.”

“Kiss me.”

Their lips connected for just a few seconds, and they pulled back, not looking away from each other’s eyes. Yeosang leaned in again, letting Wooyoung capture him in something more bruising, more ravenous. Hands tangled in hair and grips around shoulders and waists tightened. For every millisecond they parted to breathe, their lips touched again, again, again, like they needed each other to live. And they did. They stayed together when Wooyoung’s thrusts started back up again, whimpering into each other’s mouths. 

There were tears in both of their eyes when they separated for Yeosang to adjust his position on Wooyoung’s lap.

“You can come in me. Please, please come in me,” Yeosang sobbed, dangerously close to his climax. His legs were weak, letting the water support him and Wooyoung’s hands keep him grounded.

“Fuck, you’re gorgeous,” Wooyoung hissed, reaching down to stroke Yeosang to completion. With a weak cry, Yeosang released his thick, viscous come across both of their stomachs, the slight friction prolonging his pleasure. Wooyoung trailed a finger through the liquid, heavier than water, and lifted it to Yeosang’s mouth, which he accepted, sucking on his finger with half lidded eyes. His thrusts slowed, not wanting to overwhelm him, but Yeosang whined in complaint.

“Please, want it inside,” He mewled, tonguing at Wooyoung’s finger for a last time before he pulled it out of his mouth to wrap his arms around his waist like he never wanted to let Yeosang go. Carefully, his hips rolled upwards, speeding up at Yeosang’s encouragement. His unrelenting clenching and sharp, overstimulated gasps were what sent him over the edge, shooting his load deep inside Yeosang’s hole.

“So what happens now?” Yeosang hummed, his head on Wooyoung’s chest. Wooyoung was still inside him, the two wanting to be as close as possible for as long as they could. He almost didn’t want to hear the answer to his question.

“I wish we could just stay here.”

“Me too.”

Yeosang could feel that the longing was back. It weighed heavy in the water, making it hard to breathe.

“I wish I could go and stay with you. In the mountains. But I can’t leave Hongjoong behind, or the forest…”

“It’s alright, I understand.” He laid a kiss in Yeosang’s hair.

“I can’t say I’m very attached to my tarn, though. It’s beautiful, but you’re not there.”

“What about San?”

“Well, he comes and goes anyway, and he has a lot of friends. We’re not that far apart, you know. It’s just difficult to travel on foot. But San travels on the wind, and he doesn’t need the mountains to survive. He could get from the mountains to your pond in minutes if the wind was right.”

Yeosang pulled off Wooyoung’s cock, letting it slide back into its sheath, and clambered up to look him in the eyes.

“You’d really be willing to come live with me?”

“Of course. You’re my best friend.”

That annoyed Yeosang more than it should have.

“Your best friend who you just kissed? Your best friend who you just fucked so lovingly? I don’t mean to be forceful or demanding, but we need to sort out whatever this is between us. This isn’t what best friends do,” he sighed exasperatedly, turning away from Wooyoung.

_ If he’s going to hurt me and tell me he never meant it in that way, he’d better tell me now so I can leave. _

There was still no response from Wooyoung.

“You know, I spent the last few decades thinking about you. It’s all I ever did. And every time we found an excuse to meet up, after you fucked me and left, I would look at the bruises you gave me and wish that they actually meant something. I wished I was  _ yours, _ Wooyoung. But all I ever was, all I ever could be is a friend to you, right? Because naiads don’t do love like that.”

Hot tears began to slip down his cheeks before dissolving into the water of the cavern. 

“I was stupid to let you kiss me. I was stupid to come here at all. I only came here because of you, you know. And I was stupid to believe that we could ever be anything more than fuckbuddies. Why do you think I was so nervous to go into the village? It was because I was scared of losing you, Wooyoung. I stopped worrying about myself years ago. And I was right to be worried, because I nearly did lose you. The one person who I really cared about, who I really loved-”   
“Yeosang.”

He could feel Wooyoung get up behind him, ready to leave. Instead, he floated over Yeosang’s body and picked him up so that they were facing each other.

“Yeosang, can you look at me? Please?”

It took a few seconds, but eventually, his head turned towards him. He tried to look cold and aloof, but he knew his bloodshot, puffy eyes weren’t fooling anyone.

“I would never have asked to kiss you if I didn’t love you. This entire time, we were scared of the same thing, right? Being rejected by each other as well as other naiads because we feel love differently. I don’t know if you felt it from me, but I felt it from you. I felt it from you in this cave yesterday, when we were talking, and when you wanted me to stay but you didn’t want to say it. I felt it again when we got back to the river after the village, and I think you felt it from me then too, right?”

Yeosang nodded. That was the longing he sensed, and the strange mixture of emotions he mistook as sadness. And that was the hollowness when they had fallen from the fence.

“Can I love you, Yeosang? Just you, no one else. I want to love you like a clam loves its pearl, like waves love the shore… I want to love you like we were taught we shouldn’t.”

Yeosang didn’t answer. Instead, he brought a hand to Wooyoung’s face, and brought their lips together again. This time, there was no hunger, no devouring. They kissed to make up for all the years when they should have but didn’t, but they kissed knowing they’d never have to be apart again. They kissed until the oxygen ran out and they lost track of where each of their bodies began and ended, until all they could do was hold each other.

They kissed as they pulled themselves out of the river the following dusk, and they held hands through the mountains and the highlands and the forest. They dove into Yeosang’s-  _ their _ home pond together, and when they sank to the bottom of the chasm, they kissed again.

Because this time, they knew that now matter how cruelly life could give them everything and then take it all away, they would always find their way back to each other.

**Author's Note:**

> well that was way more massive than I intended for it to be.  
> PLEASEEEE ask me things about this au on twitter..... i have a map.... colour palettes,,,, backstories for everything,,, deadass if u ask me aboot a random detail like "yo wtf did they actually dump in the river" i will gladly give u an essay  
> fr tho if there's anything u dont understand i'd be delighted to explain because it's convoluted...  
> as usual. i am projecting my gay yearning onto yeosang. soz mate xx  
> do inform me of any formatting errors!! ao3 always messes up my google doc stuff lmao  
> [twt](https://twitter.com/_lavieennoir_)  
> [cc](https://curiouscat.me/lvnoir?t=1562147349)  
> [youtube](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLwOT4vpHeg73DxCc8Fh3qg?)


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